New Business Enterprises

The Art of the Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything

What does it take to turn ideas into action? What are the elements of a perfect pitch? How do you win the war for talent? How do you establish a brand without bucks? These are some of the issues everyone faces when starting or revitalizing any undertaking, and Guy Kawasaki, former marketing maven of Apple Computer, provides the answers.

The Art of the Start will give you the essential steps to launch great products, services, and companies—whether you are dreaming of starting the next Microsoft or a not-for-profit that’s going to change the world. It also shows managers how to unleash entrepreneurial thinking at established companies, helping them foster the pluck and creativity that their businesses need to stay ahead of the pack. Kawasaki provides readers with GIST—Great Ideas for Starting Things—including his field-tested insider’s techniques for bootstrapping, branding, networking, recruiting, pitching, rainmaking, and, most important in this fickle consumer climate, building buzz.

At Apple, Kawasaki helped turn ordinary customers into fanatics. As founder and CEO of Garage Technology Ventures, he has tested his iconoclastic ideas on real- world start- ups. And as an irrepressible columnist for Forbes, he has honed his best thinking about The Art of the Start.

Financial Management: Theory & Practice (with Thomson ONE - Business School Edition 1-Year Printed Access Card)

Written for and praised by students just like you, FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT: THEORY AND PRACTICE gives you relevant, practical, and easy-to-understand information covering all of the financial management topics you need to succeed in this course. Underlying theory is presented first in an accessible style and then followed by the practical application.

How to Make Millions with Your Ideas: An Entrepreneur's Guide

Crossing the Chasm

Author Geoffrey Moore makes the case that high-tech products require marketing strategies that differ from those in other industries. His chasm theory describes how high-tech products initially sell well, mainly to a technically literate customer base, but then hit a lull as marketing professionals try to cross the chasm to mainstream buyers. This pattern, says Moore, is unique to the high-tech industry.

Moore suggests remedies for the problem that can help businesses meet their long-term goals. He coaches marketing professionals on how to move slowly through the gulf, teaching them to create profiles and target specific segments of the population rather than trying to plow right into the mainstream. He cites examples of successful chasm crossings by such companies as Apple, Tandem, Oracle, and Sun, showing what they all had in common and exposing the different weaknesses in their strategies. Moore also assigns responsibility for success to programmers and developers by suggesting they design a "whole product model." Here, because integration tasks are daunting to the mainstream market, all the components of a technological product must be in one package. Moore also describes strategies for competing with rival companies and assessing the best distribution channels for penetrating the target market.

Written not just for marketing specialists but for all employees whose futures ride on the success of a technical product, Crossing the Chasm delivers crucial information in an engaging, readable tone.

Here is the bestselling guide that created a new game plan for marketing in high-tech industries. Crossing the Chasm has become the bible for bringing cutting-edge products to progressively larger markets. This edition provides new insights into the realities of high-tech marketing, with special emphasis on the Internet. It's essential reading for anyone with a stake in the world's most exciting marketplace.

The One Minute Entrepreneur: The Secret to Creating and Sustaining a Successful Business

Mega-bestselling author Ken Blanchard and celebrated business leaders Don Hutson and Ethan Willis present an inspiring story that reveals the secrets to becoming a successful entrepreneur.

In THE ONE MINUTE ENTREPRENEUR, Ken Blanchard (coauthor of the #1 bestselling business classic The One Minute Manager), Don Hutson, CEO of U.S. Learning, and Ethan Willis, CEO of Prosper Learning, tell the inspiring story of one man’s challenges in creating his own business. Through a powerful and engaging narrative, we confront many of the typical problems all entrepreneurs face in starting up their business, from finding new sources of revenue to securing the commitment of their people and the loyalty of their customers. More important, we learn the secrets to becoming a successful entrepreneur, including how to build a firm foundation, how to ensure a steady cash flow, and how to create legendary service. In addition, the book offers invaluable advice, delivered through One Minute Insights, from such entrepreneurs and thinkers as Sheldon Bowles, Peter Drucker, Michael Gerber, and Charlie “Tremendous” Jones.

Today, in the midst of the largest entrepreneurial surge in U.S. history, four out of five small businesses continue to fail. THE ONE MINUTE ENTREPRENEUR offers businesspeople and would-be entrepreneurs a treasure trove of wisdom on how to think, act, and succeed in creating and sustaining a business, no matter what their industry.

The Innovator's Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth

In the worldwide bestseller The Innovator's Dilemma, Clayton M. Christensen exposed a crushing paradox behind the failure of many industry leaders. By doing what good companies were supposed to do-focus on pleasing their most profitable customers-leaders were paving the way for their own demise. How? By ignoring "disruptive technologies"-new, cheaper innovations that initially target small customer segments but evolve to displace the reigning product.

Now, Christensen and coauthor Michael E. Raynor cut the Gordian knot of the "innovator's dilemma" with The Innovator's Solution. This groundbreaking book reveals that innovation is not as unpredictable as most managers have come to believe. While the outcomes of past innovations seem random, the process by which innovations are packaged and shaped within companies is very predictable. By understanding and managing the forces that influence this process, companies can shape high-octane business plans that create truly disruptive growth.

Drawing on years of in-depth research and using new theories tested in hundreds of companies across many industries, the authors identify the processes that create successful innovations, and show managers how to tailor their strategies to the changing circumstances of a dynamic world.

Comprehensive yet practical, The Innovator's Solution is an actionable prescription for innovation-driven, profitable growth.

"A good business book makes managers stop and think. A great business book teaches managers how to stop and think. This is a great book. It is hard to imagine an executive team that would not benefit from devoting an entire day to discussing it."

-Geoffrey Moore, Chairman and Founder, TCG Advisors, and author, Crossing the Chasm and Living on the Fault Line

"In The Innovator's Solution, Christensen and Raynor address the holy grail of all organizations: how to generate growth and sustain it over long periods. Avoiding the temptation to provide simplistic formulas, they guide the reader through carefully constructed frameworks that teach how to think about the issues that limit-and provide-growth to organizations."

-Dr. Andrew S. Grove, Chairman of the Board, Intel

"Christensen and Raynor have done a superb job of creating a framework for helping to understand the industry dynamics and for planning your own growth alternatives."

-Pekka Ala-Pietilä, President, Nokia Corporation

"Singapore, as a small nation, needs to be innovative and sensitive to disruptive changes more than other countries. Christensen and Raynor have provided an excellent framework to reduce the randomness of the innovation process. This framework will help in our effort to nurture an environment conducive for enterprises to create and capitalize on disruptive innovations."

-Teo Ming Kian, Chairman, Singapore Economic Development Board

"The Innovator's Solution goes directly to the heart of why large companies have failed to sustain innovation. Christensen and Raynor have a deep insight into the challenges that innovative companies face, and they propose practical, realistic solutions to the dilemmas of innovation. This book will be extremely useful to all managers who are committed to using innovation to sustain their growth."

-Bill George, former Chairman and CEO, Medtronic, Inc.

The Power of Unreasonable People: How Social Entrepreneurs Create Markets That Change the World

Renowned playwright George Bernard Shaw once said "The reasonable man adapts himself to the world, the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man." By this definition, some of today's entrepreneurs are decidedly unreasonable--and have even been dubbed crazy. Yet as John Elkington and Pamela Hartigan argue in The Power of Unreasonable People, our very future may hinge on their work.

Through vivid stories, the authors identify the highly unconventional entrepreneurs who are solving some of the world's most pressing economic, social, and environmental problems. They also show how these pioneers are disrupting existing industries, value chains, and business models--and in the process creating fast-growing markets around the world.

By understanding these entrepreneurs' mindsets and strategies, you gain vital insights into future market opportunities for your own organization. Providing a first-hand, on-the-ground look at a new breed of entrepreneur, this book reveals how apparently unreasonable innovators have built their enterprises, how their work will shape risks and opportunities in the coming years, and what tomorrow's leaders can learn from them.

Start investing in, partnering with, and learning from these world-shaping change agents, and you position yourself to not only survive but also thrive in the new business landscape they're helping to define.

Seeing What's Next: Using Theories of Innovation to Predict Industry Change

When a disruptive innovation is launched, it changes the entire industry and every firm operating within in

This book argues that it is possible to predict which companies will win and which will lose in a specific situation—and provides a practical framework for doing so.

Most books on innovation—including Christensen’s previous two books—approached innovation from the inside-out, showing firms how they can create innovations inside their own companies. This book is written from an “outside-in” perspective, showing how executives, investors, and analysts can assess the impact of a new innovation on the firms they have a vested interest in.

Rich Dad's Before You Quit Your Job: 10 Real-Life Lessons Every Entrepreneur Should Know About Building a Multimillion-Dollar Business (Rich Dad's)

The real secret to making money and reaching financial independence is not staying an employee, but starting a company and quickly developing it. This book is for aspiring entrepreneurs who need to know how to take those first crucial steps. In RICH DADS BEFORE YOU QUIT YOUR JOB, Robert T. Kiyosaki provides first-hand accounts of his own start-up companies, and what he learned from his failures and successes. Readers will discover: How to determine whether an idea is a good one How to write a solid business plan Where to find OPM (Other Peoples Money) to finance that plan How to incorporate for business and tax purposes How to find key advisors to develop the plan How to best launch the product or service And more. The Rich Dad experts explain everything readers need to successfully start their own businesses.

Confessions of a Real Estate Entrepreneur: What It Takes to Win in High-Stakes Commercial Real Estate

A front row seat into the world of high-stakes commercial real estate investing

“A must-read book … one of the best real estate investment books I have ever read. On my scale of 1 to 10, this unique book rates an off-the-charts 12.” ---Robert Bruss

Confessions of a Real Estate Entrepreneur is for the individual who is ready to get serious about investing. Not a rah-rah or get-rich-quick book, this book is for someone who is prepared to think about what he or she wants to accomplish. James Randel provides the how and why.

James Randel has been a successful investor and educator for 25 years. He teaches investing through stories and anecdotes – bringing to the limelight not just his successes (and there are some amazing stories of these) but also his mistakes. His candor is instructive and entertaining.

It is said that “those who can, do, and those who can’t, teach.” James Randel is a rare exception as he is both a highly successful investor as well as an excellent teacher. As said by Jeff Dunne, Vice Chairman of the largest real estate company in the world, CB Richard Ellis:

“I’ve tracked Jimmy’s incredible run of successful real estate investments for 20 years and more recently invested very profitably with him. His new book is a must read for anyone interested in real estate investing.”

If you are tired of the “same old, same old” and prepared to play in the big leagues, this book is calling your name.